Kyler's Justice (Assassins of Gravas Book 3) - N.J. Walters Page 0,23
uses them against them. If I didn’t come back and do what he told me, he’d either kill them or sell them to slavers. He wasn’t lying.”
A chill snuck down his spine. The idea of either child or Etta being harmed or in the hands of slavers made him want to burn this place to the ground and annihilate everyone associated with it.
“He had a job for me.” She dug the heels of her hands into her eyes and rocked forward. “I did everything I could to talk him out of it. If I’d known it involved the Gravasians— I’m not sure what I could have done differently.” When she lowered her hands, her eyes were stark, like blue bruises filled with hurt and guilt.
“What did you do?” Fear ate at him, a living creature designed to torture and destroy.
“There was a man who’d been here before and was expected back. Balthazar wanted to talk to him.” Bitterness coated her laughter. “Talk. I knew what he meant. I resisted, but—” She stared at him, silently pleading for understanding. “I came looking for the girls one day. They were gone, but Helldrick was here.”
This was news. There’d been no proof the father had been involved up until now. He remained still and silent, letting her story unfold.
“The girls were somewhere safe, he’d said. They’d be returned if I did what Balthazar wanted. If I didn’t…” She wrapped her arms around herself and rocked slightly. “Slavers like pretty little girls.” Several tears rolled down her face. She brushed them away.
“And what did he want you to do?” His voice was harsher, but she didn’t seem to notice, locked in her private hell.
“Drug a man. That in itself was unusual. Balthazar would normally jump a man from behind when he wasn’t looking. Or have a few of his henchmen handle it for him. This one he wanted to make sure couldn’t fight back. It was wrong, but I convinced myself it was for the greater good. He was a grown man and he frequented Hell’s Gate. How innocent could he be? My sisters’ lives hung in the balance. This man enjoyed my food. He was wary, like many who come here, but he liked me. And I used that against him. I slipped a sedative Balthazar gave me into his soup.
“Not a day goes by I don’t stop and wonder where he is. I don’t know if he’s alive or dead or how he got the Gravasian tech he had on him. I didn’t know about that until last night when Helldrick told me. They’re out of their minds to involve the Gravasians in any way.”
His limbs ached he held them so tight. Cold. He was chilled to his bone. Deeper. Hell wasn’t a fiery place, it was icy and solitary.
Etta had drugged the king’s son. There was no way that could go unanswered. King Agman would demand it.
“Well?” She swiped at her face and took a deep breath. The redness of her eyes and blotchiness of her skin did nothing to diminish her beauty. She was slender, but there was a deep well of courage within that delicate frame.
He pulled out the knife he’d taken from her and set it on the table.
****
Etta swallowed hard. She’d suspected but here was the incontrovertible truth. Ky was her intruder. “Who sent you?”
“King Agman el Gravaso, king of Gravas.”
She was a dead woman. Her vision dimmed, narrowing to a pinprick of light. Don’t pass out. That would leave her and the girls defenseless. She blinked her eyes and dug her fingers into the arms of her chair. “The king?” Her voice was a strangled whisper.
“The man you drugged was Gravasian.”
It was a death knell to any hope she might have harbored. The lump in her throat made it difficult to swallow. “I thought Gravasians never ventured far from home and never alone.”
“It’s rare, but it happens.”
And she’d been lucky enough to drug the man. She closed her eyes. Despair pressed down on her, threatening to crush her spirit. Had she been born under a curse? Some days it certainly seemed so. She’d tried so hard to escape this life, to save her sisters.
Now it was all for naught.
“You’re Gravasian?”
He inclined his head. A roaring filled her ears. He had to be one of the famed Gravasian assassins that men whispered about. They were the bogeymen who scared even the most dangerous of villains—Helldrick and her brother included.